The Gardens Of Kyoto - Softcover

Walbert, Kate

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860499333 ISBN 13: 9781860499333

Publisher: Virago, 2002

Synopsis

I had a cousin, Randall, killed on Iwo Jima. Have I told you?'

So begins Ellen's heartbreaking story of coming of age in the long shadow of World War II. She starts with Randall, the cousin with whom she had shared Easter Sundays, secrets and, perhaps, love. When Ellen receives a package after Randall's death containing his diary and a book called The Gardens of Kyoto, the mysteries of his short life start to unravel. But it soon becomes apparent that Ellen's memory may be distorting reality, altered as it is by a mix of imagination and disappointment, and that the truth about Randall, and others, may be hidden.

With lyrical, seductive prose, Walbert spins several parallel stories of the damage done by war. Like the mysterious arrangements of the intricate sand, rock and gravel gardens of Kyoto, they gracefully assemble into a single, rich mosaic.

About this title

Review:

Nothing is quite as it should be in this first novel by Kate Walbert, author of the celebrated story collection Where She Went. Set in wartime Philadelphia, the story is told by Ellen, a character inhabiting a rather complex narrative device. Namely, she's looking back on the war years, from some future vantage point, recounting her experiences to her own child. This framing device allows Walbert to create a novel in which the past is neither as innocent nor as simple as the reader assumes.

Ellen, the youngest of three sisters, lives for her annual visit to see her cousin Randall. Something in his odd-duck imaginings speaks to her; their bond is cemented by the fact that they both have red hair (relationships have been built on less). Yet this portrait of Randall is shadowed by loss, and we know from the first that he will be killed in the war. Small wonder that nostalgia sweetens Ellen's account of their friendship: "Sometimes, when I think about it, I see the two of us there, Randall and me, from a different perspective, as if I were Mother walking through the door to call us for supper. One will never grow old, never age. One will never plant tomatoes, drive automobiles, go to dances. One will never drink too much and sit alone, wishing, in the dark."

Ellen tells of meeting the father of her child, of her sister's disappearance, of a friend's abortion. These are in fact the story's recurrent motifs: vanishing women, endangered children, and men permanently damaged by war. As for the titular gardens, they make but a brief appearance, in a book Randall bequests to the narrator. Yet Walbert's description of them lends an extra resonance to her themes of distance and loss, even as we discover that Ellen has been deceiving herself--and us--all along. --Claire Dederer, Amazon.com

Review:

A fine debut novel a strong story, written with the grace and poignancy that hindsight bring s' Edna O'Brien ('Kate Walbert's fine delicate prose captures voices that we don't hear much any more & she guides us from past to present, & from death to life, with affectionate detail and deep understanding. GARDENS OF KYOTO is a ghost story, a mystery, a love story an)

Amy Bloom ('This is an intensely moving love story.')

THE TIMES ('Wallbert has created a haunting and complex debut novel whose elliptical, adolescent eroticism may do something to alleviate the craving of readers experiencing withdrawal symptoms after finishing Ian McEwan's ATONEMENT.')

GUADRIAN ('The novel becomes a convincing chronicle of domestic life in mid-twentieth century America.')

About this edition

• Publisher: Virago
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1860499333
• ISBN 13: 9781860499333
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288